metalsuccattack

for this, maybe have the spear do more damage to compensate for firing slower then, but the dynamics of the ranged weapons in VS is still unique. in terms of comparing the bow and spear id say its kinda like a shotgun compared to the automatic weapons instead of automatic weapons to a sniper, and even then i still have to charge the spear a bit longer in order to make shots against farther targets compared to the bow. recovering spears can be kinda risky or slightly hard even with the large model size if you throw it towards shrubs or bushes, in a dense forest, at long range or into the darkness of the night or a cave, especially when that puts you in risk of getting hit by shivers or bears that may run faster than you.

in terms of balancing the damages of the spear and bow, i think of comparing it to the lightning and rocket launcher from the quake games but with the damage values and fire rates kinda swapped. the LG does a lot of damage per second and fires fast but is medium to short range and runs out of ammo really quick. whereas the rocket launcher is slower and projectile based but has the better range and per damage hit, with the slower fire rate meaning that you can do more damage overall. this is kinda the dynamic i found with the two ranged weapons when i played that i would like sustained. (quake is way faster paced though with more dedicated level design for balancing out the weapons, along with the rocket launcher being explosive. still, being up close or at medium range in the open against a player with the LG will cause your health to drain very fast unless you can directly hit them with a rocket) i turn down the warping effects of the temporal storm in the accessibility menu and just pretend that the hunter has really good eyes, since everything is gonna be harder to see than in broad daylight anyways because of the rust colored fog and especially at night. and this is also why im okay with spears being high burst damage because the risk of getting damaged up close by a tier 3/4 enemy as a hunter with lesser armor to optimize range damage output is a risk im okay with taking when i need to recollect my spears, plus bowtorns.

im ok with reigning in the damage of the thrown spear, especially to make room for newer tiers. but i feel like the way to balance that should go both ways for other weapons (aside from tool sharpening) instead of just reducing the spears own damage and fire rate to make the other weapons better. i already kind of thought that the shorter range and non stackable properties balanced the spear out compared to a bow, plus ranged damage overall already does eventually become less effective the heavier armor you wear due to increased range charge time, though in practice i haven't seen the effect of this yet.

burst damage is being able to do a lot of damage at once, but not a lot of damage over time since it has a cooldown or is limited by some other resource. i guess its fine that the bow and arrow is able to outdo the spear eventually in terms of range damage by the time you get to the last tier of tools but in order to do that the devs made the spears worse overall, despite the newer tiers. (maybe the spear ends up specializing in longer range melee combat towards the iron and steel age and become pikes or halberds as arrows become more efficient) im also well aware of the damage statistics for the bow arrow and spear as well. but despite the lower per hit damage and easier to break ammo, the bow with lower tier arrows are still fine for like defensive events like temporal storms where you just need to do consistent damage at a safe range and the enemies are going at you or at least not going anywhere; whereas the spear is better for offensive stuff or hunting where you need to take out a smaller group of things or one thing as quick and with as little hits as possible (or to keep forward momentum) and thats the balance i would like the game to retain.

if so, id still prefer the spear to be a more effective in bursts for the fact that they don't stack. my setup is using falx for enemies like drifters up close because that lets them drop items, but then spears for higher tier enemies like corrupted or tainted variants and then arrows for bells and tier 4 enemies that i can slowly work away at from a safe spot. i think its a valid risk to run out of spears and then have to run into danger picking them up whereas arrows are more expendable because you can carry more (p.s. especially since early game inventory is super limited anyways so its not super inventory friendly to carry like 9 spears)

unfortunately from downloading rc1 after testing rc6 and doing a video comparison, those dont seem to be in effect.

is this the newest snapshot? in im 1.22 rc6 and the accuracy time is really brutal (update, i actually downloaded rc5 but i got the notification to download rc6 on that client so i thought it was the newest version) (update 2, its still brutal)

tbf later asiatic bows/recurve bows that got really large started to gain properties that modern compound bows have today. and also there were different types of archery depending on the time and place whether it was a large group of stationery archers with longbows and mediterranean draw or horseback archers with thumb draw that tended to fire faster. there is also bow weight that mattered with ligher draws letting you fire faster while heavier ones had a bigger chance of piercing armor and doing more damage.

i think arrows are fine for longer ranged combat or when you dont have enough spears to take down whatever big crowd of drifters you are fighting from a safer distance. whereas spears are great for taking up inventory space and for when you need to take out something quick like hunting for food or fighting an enemy with a high health pool that is fast like a bear or a higher tier of rust monster/bell. one of the places the bow shines is smth like temporal storms where you just need to be able to dish out stuff without having to collect your arrows back as much. ofc me navigating through the gripes and making it work doesn't invalidate that there are problems with the way its implemented, the arrows are still underwhelming effort wise compared to a spear and also the new spear snapshot stuff is kinda hurting me but yeah

hi im like a month into playing this game and am in my third year in game. i recently went to try out the new update snapshots because i was interested in the new spear, but i realized that they do less damage and have a longer charge time now. im ok with reining in the damage, but the charge time for getting accurate shots with it is really brutal and i didn't think was a great trade off for the increase of materials you can craft the spear out of (the weapon ready time for throwing hasn't been changed but the time it takes for the spread to shrink has been lowered). for a background, i started playing as a hunter and immediately found a system that works. falx for close range and farming flax from drifters, spear for high burst and medium range damage but you have to pick them up (i carry 7 spears), and then a bow for longer range or for when i don't have the speed to take out stuff with one burst of spears. i do kinda understand that throwing a spear every half second as a hunter class is probably the highest burst of raw damage that a player can do but i think its been smacked to the ground and its less reliable now. i believe the spear should be a heavy hitting ranged weapon (and long range melee) at the cost of lower durability and also not being stackable like arrows.